Fan of Lynn

I have over 38 years of law enforcement experience, 27 years with the Santa Barbara Police department and eleven years with the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office. This experience allowed me to observe the work of both candidates who desire to be your next district attorney, the highest law enforcement officer in the county.

The purpose of this letter is to give you my thoughts on who would make the best District Attorney. In my mind without any doubts, Mr. Joshua Lynn is clearly the best candidate. and this is why I believe he is the best fitted for this important position.

From the very first year that I began working with Mr. Lynn in 1997, it was clear to me he was something special who had all the tools to be a great prosecutor. He is intelligent, affable and articulate. He demonstrated common sense and pragmatism. He demonstrated an ability to think on his feet in the courtroom like I had never seen before in all my years of experience. He is able to speak his heart to the jury. But what impressed me most about Mr. Lynn was his sense of doing the right thing for the right reasons, his heightened sense of ethics and integrity.

It is my understanding that Mr. Lynn has never had one of his cases overturned by a higher Court. I don’t believe his opponent can say the same. He has never had his ethics and integrity questioned in a written opinion by a Judge in any of his cases. I don’t believe Ms. Dudley can say the same. I don’t believe he has ever lost the trust of a judge in any of his cases. I don’t believe Ms. Dudley can say the same.

Ms. Dudley authored a novel which allowed the defense community to question an issue of conflict of interest as a prosecutor. Whether that is true or not is not the issue. The issue is her judgment in authoring such a book without some thought about the possible consequences to her professional responsibilities as a prosecutor. Having written a novel so similar to her role as a prosecutor handling the same kinds of cases that she handled in the real world, allowed defense attorneys to engage in tactics which caused delays in her cases resulting in loss of resources, time and unnecessary detractions for the prosecutions of her cases. I have never observed Mr. Lynn make such judgment.

I know that Mr. Lynn would be willing to share his California Bar association record with the voters. I would hope Ms. Dudley would do the same. I know that Mr. Lynn would welcome debating Ms. Dudley; I hope this does occur and often; because, I believe the voters would see the skills, abilities and philosophy possessed by Mr. Lynn that I’ve seen all these years.—Jim Nalls, supervising investigator for the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office, retired, Carlsbad